Sunbelt Software Reveals Top Ten Malicious Threats for May 2009

Security firm Sunbelt Software has unveiled its top ten list of malicious threats which were most commonly detected in May 2009.

Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen has topped the Sunbelt's malware list as it was responsible for causing 6.34% of the overall malicious infections detected in May 2009. It is reported to be a Trojan horse that steals user password and exists in different versions.

This malicious code is infused into the user's PC from a remote system in order to steal his confidential details, such as login details for particularly bank websites and cached passwords. This Trojan is able to gain backdoor functionality and may also track keystrokes.

Moving ahead, BehavesLike.Win32.Malware (v) has been placed at the second spot, with an aggregate detection of 5.28% malware infections during the same month. According to security experts, the detection of this particular malware may prove to be a challenging job for security software.

Trojan-Downloader.Zlob.Media-Codec follows at the third position, accounting for a total of 2.48% malicious detections in May 2009.

Fourth rank has been given to Trojan.1 that accounts for around 2.45% malicious code detection by Sunbelt in May 2009. Though, this code has fallen down in causing malicious attack during the month. In April 2009, Trojna.1 was at the third position by causing 3.16% malicious infections.

Fifth place has been acquired by Virtumonde that gave rise to a total of 2.11% malicious code infections in May 2009. This malicious code has been prevailing in the Internet world for quite a longer period of time now. In April 2009, it was at the second place, representing that the infections caused by this malicious code has declined to some extent in May.

Trojan.DNSChanger.Gen, Exploit.PDF-JS.Gen (v), and Trojan.JS.Obfuscated.gen.a (v) occupied sixth, seventh and eight positions respectively in May 2009 by accounting for 2.01%, 1.90% and 1.86% of the total malicious infections detected by Sunbelt.

INF.Autorun (v) stood at the ninth spot while Trojan-Downloader.Generic stood at the tenth position, by accounting for a share of 1.39% and 1.31% in the total number of malicious infections detected by the security vendor in May 2009.

As these malicious codes are continually spreading via social networking sites as well as through various other techniques employed by their creators, security experts have asked Internet users to ensure of their safety while being online.